Budget Upgrade

[Dymetrie]

Following some hangs whilst loading, some startup repairs, and a bit of slowdown of my whole system; I'm wondering if it may be time to look at upgrading my PC.

Currently, I'm running Windows 7 x64 on an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ with 4GB DDR (just DDR, not 2 or 3 or a million) and an GeForce 8800 GT (512MB GDDR3) with a pair of 500GB HDD.

On occasion I get some lag in games (this could also be partly down to the wireless desktop, though), but overall this little machine does us rather well :)

Looking at a budget upgrade which to replace the tired old parts and put a bit of zing back into the machine. I currently have about £150 available and was considering just upgrading the mobo, processer and RAM (with an option to look at a decent sized SSD and a better GFX card when I have a bit more cash).

As you can tell from my current machine, I'm slightly out of touch with what anything is, so some advice on something which will give better performance, but at low cost, would be much appreciated :)

[Dymetrie]

Ok, so I've put this together...

Is it any good?

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/Build.jpg

I don't have a clue anymore! :D:huh::o

[divine]

I'm not entirely up to speed with this end of the market but i'd personally be looking at a Core i3 setup with 4GB RAM - I don't personally see much merit in 8GB yet, unless you're building some sort of editing powerhouse.

[Dymetrie]

An i3 would push me over budget (at least double the price of the Llano!) and I'm kind of planning to sell off my old socket 939 parts to go towards funding an SSD or GFX card later in the year to get a bit more of a performance boost.

I've had a different setup (using a Pentium G840) suggested on Overclockers, which looks nice and solid (and a definite step up over my current system!) and that'll put me on the right socket to be able to slot in an i3/5/7 in the future if the munchkin stops costing as much :p

4GB of RAM is £25, 8GB is £40; so I'm happy to put the extra in for when I am doing RAM intensive tasks :)

I'll not be putting in my order until Friday, so if I can pull together some more funding then an i3 (at least) would certainly be something that I'd change to!

[Feek]

in the future if the munchkin stops costing as much :p

That never happens.

[Dymetrie]

Actually...

With a few quid extra, this i3 build could well work :)

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/ocukbuild.jpg

(obviously I'll not be paying for postage :p)

[Dymetrie]

Yay :D

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/20120504_160952.jpg

[Dymetrie]

Posted this on the blue place yesterday... Pretty damn pleased with the improvement (although yet to play any games :() :)

Original:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/WindowsExperience.jpg

New:

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/WindowsExperience2.jpg

Definitely think I'll be looking to pick up an SSD next :)

New SATA DVD drive (and Tangfastics :D) has been delivered and will be installed tomorrow, most probably...

[Feek]

That's a nice improvement - Is it still called Phoenix?

[Dymetrie]

That's a nice improvement - Is it still called Phoenix?

It is, and the upgrade has knocked 10-15 degrees off the idle temps (although as it's an i3 the idle clock speed is half the full clock speed) :)

[Dymetrie]

Latest addition has been delivered!

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/20121117_171029.jpg

Will be installing it and upgrading to Windows 8 at some point in the next fortnight :)

[Nutcase]

Cool :)

I just put a 120gb SSD in as part of a major upgrade (being currently bubba-less I figured last chance for a major upgrade!): i7 2600 (second hand) gigabyte motherboard 32gb RAM (I use virtual machines quite a lot so went for the max), 64gb mSATA on the motherboard for superquick start (if I get bored with that gimmick I'll add it to system storage) and the 120gb for OS.

Still using my "old" HD 5670s for graphics, but don't need all that much power for counterstrike ;D

On the windows experience the HDD score jumped to 8.1 :cool: lowest is the graphics on 6.9

It takes longer for the motherboard to post than to boot to login screen for win8 :cool:

[Desmo]

Nice :)

I'd love an SSD in my little server, should minimise hibernate/wake times by quite a bit I'd imagine.

[Dymetrie]

It's certainly made an improvement (oh, and I might have upgraed to Windows 8, which I like :p)! :)

http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o237/dymetrie/WindowsExperience3.jpg

Looks like a budget GFX card is next on the list...

Anyone have any suggestions of a cheap (sub £50) card which will poop all over my GeForce 8800 GT?

[Stan_Lite]

Another fan of SSDs here. I was skeptical about their benefits but I was pleasantly surprised at the difference in boot times. Since installing my OS on the SSD, my boot time has quartered and waking from sleep is virtually instantaneous.

I always maintained that the best single upgrade for a lowish spec PC was to add more RAM. I would now put adding an SSD on a par with that.

[Dymetrie]

Now it's bedded in, I've done some counts on bootup...

From pressing the power button to the lock screen - 14 seconds
From POST screen to the lock screen - 5 seconds

Seriously impressed with those times! Plus, programmes load almost instantly. Obviously this'll slow down as the system gets bogged down with stuff, but if I keep on top of background processes and maybe do a full refresh (I like the built in refresh and restore options in Windows 8) once a year or so then hopefully it'll stay nice and nippy for a good long time :)